Rank regarded the soul as an invention against death

Evidence

Otto Rank proposed that the soul is one of humankind’s earliest and most clever inventions, enabling humans to dodge death by perceiving themselves as more than just physical beings. As Rank’s translators put it, “the soul was created in the big bang of an irresistible psychological force—our will to live forever—colliding with the immutable biological fact of death.” — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 352

Categorization

• DEFINE: Otto Rank’s account of the soul’s origin as a psychological invention.